| dc.description.abstract | There is an abundant literature regarding supplier development in collaboration with
big companies. Nowadays, Small Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) are growing in
number and there is not much research in collaboration with them regarding supplier
development. This thesis contributes to Lean supplier development with the purpose
of testing two potential processes for supplier development for Small Medium-sized
Enterprises as well as some barriers and success factors. The aim is to check the
applicability of the two extracted supplier development processes, potential barriers
and success factors for SMEs. A framework was made to categorize the barriers and
success factors and their connection to SMEs was considered. A case study was
conducted for this purpose and the data was gathered through semi-structured
interviews in a qualitative manner.
The two potential processes for supplier development for SMEs are validated through
this research with some variations. Potential barriers and success factors are
discussed, and their validity and applicability to SMEs are analyzed and discussed in
Chapter 6. Two new barriers for supplier development discovered by this research, IT
as a barrier and Language as a barrier. For further research others can identify
underlying reasons for big suppliers engaging in supplier development with SME
buyers, especially for cross-border suppliers. | |